Just Like Magic of Old
by computerneek
Summary: Magic is a thing of the distant past, but it changes Princess Short Flight's life forever after a run-in with orbiting procedures.
1. Chapter 1

_System Alert- Foreign vessel detected at close proximity; stealth is engaged._

_Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 disallows movement of this vessel._

_Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 disallows disengagement of stealth systems or violation of emission control protocol._

_Solution discovered. Penetrating foreign vessel electronics… Done. Placing false detection in foreign vessel's sensors… Done._

_Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 complete._

_Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43921: Data Insertion Test: Already Completed._

_Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43922: Travel to Wormhole._

_Wormhole detected in-system. Performing warp jump… Done._

_Foreign vessel has successfully avoided impact. Note: Thaumic energy penetration detected on foreign vessel._

* * *

"I don't know, I'm _eight_!"

Princess Short Flight looks fearfully at her navigation panels after her exclamation to Orbital Control. It's true- she _is_ eight, so she doesn't know anything she _ought_ to know before being allowed to fly a starship. Such as how to understand the various orbital codes, or the math required to get the ship _into_ one of those orbits.

She _had_, at least, read the ship user's manual before she got behind the helm. So at least she knows how to alter her heading and vector. And what all the various alarms mean- thus, how she knows it's telling her she's on a dangerous suborbital trajectory right now. The annoying buzzer won't turn _off_ until she adjusts her orbit to either encounter the atmosphere at a safe velocity… or stay out of it entirely.

Only thing is, she doesn't know which way to burn in order to make that happen.

And while she knows Orbital Control is trying to help her, she also knows she has a matter of about twenty minutes before she hits the atmosphere.

And she has _no idea_ what the words Orbital Control used to tell her which way to burn _means_. It had been an angle she understood- but it had been an angle between 'retrograde' and 'antiradial', reference points she most certainly does _not_ understand.

"Alright," the controller working with her transmits. It sounds like she's speaking through gritted teeth, yet forcing herself to stay professional. "Can you burn three hundred to antiradial in ninety-three seconds, mark?"

Funny, that's a smaller number than the angled burn… though there's a much shorter time to execution. Fortunately, she knows enough of their standards- her 'burn three hundred' means to burn three hundred _meters per second_. Since her ship has just over twelve hundred meters per second remaining, she's pretty sure the ship can do that; if she really pushes it, she can make _any_ heading change in forty seconds or less.

If only she knew which way 'antiradial' is.

She engages the radio. "Um… Which way is that?"

There is a pause. "You… don't know what 'antiradial' is?"

She shakes her head, even though the controller won't see it. "I do not."

"You know how your orbit is roughly elliptical around the planet? Antiradial is perpendicular to that path, facing _out_, away from the planet."

She takes a few seconds. "So, I'll be facing away from the planet, but at a ninety degree angle from my vector?"

"Yes!" The controller sounds exasperated.

She starts to reach for the controls- it'll take about thirty-five seconds to make that turn, and she's got forty to the burn- then, _very_ suddenly, the proximity alarm goes off. She lets out a yelp, abandoning the helm to examine the maneuvering display. There shouldn't be anything that close!

But there is. Dead ahead, about three seconds from impact on her current course. And it's _enormous_.

She stares at the display for a second, then closes her eyes. She can only pray that heaven exists, and that she's not doomed for hell for failing her parents.

A second later, the buzzer dies.

She waits a couple seconds, before opening her eyes to peer out the windshield. Nothing. She peers at her maneuvering display- also nothing. "What in the world…?" She raises one hoof to rub her horn, which has started _itching_ for some reason. Then she glances back down at the time readout. "Musta been a sensor ghost, I guess." She scowls at the timer; she's too late to make the turn before the burn. She reaches for the radio again, depresses the key. "Um… Which way was retrograde?"

"Retrograde is the opposite of your current vector," the controller states. "And if you're going to do _that_ burn instead, it's in seventy-three seconds."

She reads back the notes she'd made earlier on the burn, after setting the timer again.

"Ahh, readback is correct. You doing it, or…?" The controller sounds exasperated, but tired… and a lot less angry than earlier. Disappointed, maybe?

She pulls on the levers, beginning the required heading change. "Yeah. Thirty seconds I'll be on heading, then wait… thirty-eight seconds, I think, to burn in sixty-two from now, mark?"

"Ahh, that's sixty-one from your mark."

"Sixty-one, roger." She deducts a second from the timer and guides her ship onto the required heading. She spends several seconds fine-tuning the angle and programming the burn, then waits the twenty or so seconds left before the burn… and strikes the ignite key. Fortunately, while the computer might not understand 'retrograde' and 'antiradial', it _does_ understand four hundred and someodd meters per second, and has no qualms with using its advanced processors to make the burn _extremely_ precise.

She waits until the computer completes the burn, flattening her ears against the angry yelling she _knows_ her parents are producing, way back in their module. The traffic controller hadn't figured out what she could understand until after it was too late for a standard, low-gee burn, so she'd had to go full power- and her parents will have been blasted into their couch by an apparent seven gees. Besides, she's got a developing headache- and now that the crash warning buzzer has finally quit, she can relax… some. "Alright," she calls in. "I'm now in a stable orbit… Do I need to adjust it any, or…?"

"Ahh… yes, unfortunately. I'm going to need you to burn six five to antinormal, centered in three-seven-two seconds, mark."

She sets the timer. "Uh… Okay. Which way is antinormal?"

"Imagine you were standing on the planet directly under your ship, facing prograde- that's forwards, to match your vector. Antinormal would then be to your right."

She looks at her maneuvering display. "So… perpendicular to the plane of my orbit… and mostly south?"

"Yes."

She nods, manipulating the helm to point the ship. Her parents' module is at the center of mass, so they don't care how much she spins the thing around. She then keys in the burn order to the computer. "Alright then. That was six five to antinormal, centered in three-three-one seconds, mark?"

"Readback and time is correct."

"Can I do it at half a meter per second squared?"

"Affirmative."

"Roger. Initiating one-three-zero second burn, total six-five to antinormal, in two-five-seven seconds… Mark."

"Correct."

She takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "Alright. I'll call in again when the burn is complete?"

"Ahh, negative, actually. When the burn is complete, you'll be in your designated orbital slot- I believe I gave you the information earlier?"

She reads it back from a sidebar on her maneuvering display.

"Readback is correct. Is your ship equipped with an orbital verification system?"

"Ahh… Yes, it is." It's equipped with quite a lot more than that- everything _except_ something that understands what retrograde, antiradial, and antinormal are… but most of that is top secret.

"Roger. Once the burn completes, if verification comes back positive, signal done with engines. If _not_, call me up again and we'll figure out what adjustments to make."

"Understood." She lets out a final sigh, and watches the time to execution display tick down. This time, she's had plenty of time to set the computer up to initiate the burn on its own as well.

A sudden banging sounds on the hatch. She glances at the door control system, before punching the intercom key. She _really_ doesn't want to deal with her mother _and_ her growing headache at the same time, but she doesn't have much of a choice.

Her mother scowls out of her screen, before repositioning herself to look into it better. "Short Flight!" she barks.

She sighs at the screen. "Yes, Mother?"

"Why in the _world_ didn't you warn us you were going to burn hard?"

"It was either that, or crash into the planet," she answers carefully. "I didn't think any _extra_ warnings were needed, since you _knew_ I was going to be making burns."

Her mother practically explodes. "You should have _warned_ us you were making a fifty-gee burn! Your father chipped his horn! You should- What-!"

_Saved by the bell,_ Short Flight sighs internally, watching her mother throw her hooves at the handholds. Unfortunately, she's not wearing her H.A.N.D.S., so she only manages to push herself away from them… before falling, kinda slowly, back away from the screen out of sight. She turns forward, cutting the connection and turning to watch the maneuvering display. The computer had started the burn on schedule, conveniently saving her from finding out whatever gruesome thing her parents had been doing in their module. There's a _reason_ she'd wanted to use _her_ ship for this operation, rather than her parents' ship- and it's not _just_ that she's low on fuel. No- on _her_ ship, she can tell them to do their… _thing_ in their module, and _nowhere_ else. And, unlike anywhere else, they'll actually _listen_.

She's heartily tired of their mess being… _everywhere_.

On the surface of a planet, where there's _gravity_, they're not bad about it- and they do their adult things on their bed… then have the maids change the sheets three times a day. To her knowledge, the maids don't complain because they're _paid_ not to complain.

She's not, though. In space, her parents get worse. They do it _everywhere_… then don't even bother going to the bathroom when they need to go, either. Which means their ships all stink to high heaven, and the few times she's flown in them, she's sometimes had to wipe _something_ disgusting off the control panels before she could read it.

On _her_ ship… Well, their module isn't _technically_ even part of it. No, that remodeled cargo container is in the central cargo bay, carefully anchored in place. Their bedroom is part of the same module- and when she gets home, cleaning her _entire_ ship of all of their gunk will be as simple as opening the cargo bay doors, releasing the docking clamps, and asking for a tug to tow the module away. Her parents are strictly forbidden from doing _any_ of that outside of their module, or emerging from it when not _clean_\- so they almost never emerge from it, even to reach an airlock. After all, she can just open the cargo bay doors and let them use the external airlock on their module. If they need a small craft, they can hire a local one, _not_ use one of the several she has in some of her other bays.

The main reason she'd wanted to come along for this mission, let alone use her own ship, is that her ship happened to be running low on _fuel_. And now, at just over seven hundred meters per second of fuel remaining, it doesn't have the fuel to return _home_. Which means, since her parents will pay _any_ price to get home, she can tank up on their dime, and not have to spend her scanty allowance on _fuel_.

Well… her scanty allowance, plus the rather significant stash of funds hidden in her private chambers, that she'd earned by offering to use her ship to move stuff around the fleet back home. Hardly nothing in fuel cost, as she spent most of those trips drifting from one ship to another- and they paid her handsomely for the time she'd had to spend away from her parents, and she'd got a _huge_ amount of practice with docking maneuvers. She'd never told anyone that she enjoyed the time away from her parents as well.

By the time the burn finally completes, her headache has grown very painful. She rubs the side of her head long enough to see the green checkmark of the orbital verification system coming back positive, before going through her well-practiced motions of signalling done with engines… and locking out the controls. A quick glance at the life support readout indicates her mother has scrambled back into their module, so she locks the inner cargo bay doors before scrambling out of her chair and kicking off the control panel, launching herself straight towards the door into her private chambers. If she's honest with herself, she's lucky her parents let her buy this ship- and don't care what she does with it.

She slips through the hatch, closes it behind her, and launches herself for her bed. As usual, her Hands have no difficulty catching the straps that keep her in bed in zero gravity, so she crawls into bed swiftly. Once in, with the straps adjusted, she reaches up to lock her Hands into their charging frames, and starts rubbing her horn gently. It almost feels like something is trying to expand _inside_ her horn- but it can't. There's only blood lines, nerves, and a bit of useless vestigial biology.

It doesn't take her long before she falls into the peaceful embrace of sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Short Flight only barely manages to keep herself conscious through the entirety of the burn- and when the automatic main engine shutdown occurs, she breathes a sigh of relief. It's no longer plowing her against her seat- and torturing her entire body in the process. She reaches forwards, and pulls the throttle down to zero.

Finally, she goes through the motions of locking out the controls before she allows herself to relax, and drift towards the inviting clutches of unconsciousness. It'll be close to two hours before her ship is far enough from the planet to light off the gravity drive- and according to her computer, almost two full days after that before she reenters the danger zone on a ballistic trajectory.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, her chest pain goes away, and she suddenly finds herself so full of energy she couldn't possibly go to sleep. As a matter of fact, it reminds her of her early youth, before she'd grown up enough to care about other ponies.

But her body pain, and the same in her hooves, hasn't gone away yet, so she only sighs and relaxes in place, waiting for the gravity drive activation point.

* * *

Short Flight takes a very deep breath, and starts off the final burn of the journey. It was about a forty hour trip- and, fortunately, the pain in her hooves and body had gone down to more managable levels when she'd slept through much of the acceleration and deceleration phases; she'd stretched the journey out just right to give her those extended naps by setting the gravity drive to only eighty gees or so.

And now, she's finally done. Rather fortunately, her computers are more than willing to anticipate orbits- so setting herself up to rendezvous with the fleet had been easy. Well… maybe not easy, but definitely simple. She'd really only had to set herself up with a circular orbit out where her Gravity Drive would have maximal effect, then pick the right time to decelerate such that she'd be able to decelerate into the same orbit as the Fleet right about the time they were in the same spot. Well… mostly the same orbit; she'd stopped just outside their orbit… though close enough for her to use only small little puffs on her maneuvering thrusters to get back into line with the rest.

And now, this final burn of the journey isn't even technically part of the journey. No- she'd already opened the cargo bay, and maneuvered her parents' cargo module into a lock-to-lock meeting with their space station- and now, while they busy themselves with transferring to the surface-to-space shuttle that's docked at another point on the station, she's released the docking clamps in her cargo bay, and is accelerating away from the module. Not much, of course- only a meter per second or so. But enough to put space between her ship and her parents' mess.

Once clear of the station, she closes her hangar doors and makes a few more puffs on her maneuvering thrusters to get herself into a steady orbital position, signals done with engines, and locks out the engines. She doesn't leave the control panel, though; instead, she logs into the planetary command net and issues the nightshift traffic controller his first official warning for skimping on his work. And calls a few dayshift controllers until she finds one that's willing to come in six hours early.

She makes a little tick mark on that employee record; this is the… She counts the marks. This is the thirteenth time young Shooting Star has covered for an absent overnight controller in the three months since she'd hired him straight out of college- even though he's not actually a controller. No, he's an Emergency Engineer- the engineering corps she'd hired to help reduce the number of explode-o-ships in orbit.

Which she needs because she seems to be the only non-commercial spacecraft pilot to be willing to actually read the instruction manual; her awareness campaign last year had no effect near Earth, and even less here. So, since her parents gave her Orbital Control after her efforts to reduce absenteeism had reduced ship-to-ship collisions by almost thirty percent, she'd followed Earth's example and hired a force of engineers. Now, so long as she's present to keep the night crew on task, midspace accidents only happen about once a month here- which is better than the almost daily occurrence in Earth orbit. Sure, Earth deals with about three times as many ships- but that hadn't stopped her. Her goal is to reduce ship-to-ship collisions to an annual issue… or even rarer, if she can.

Regardless, Star definitely deserves a commendation. And… She checks his date of hire against her shipboard clock, which she'd already synchronized with the local clocks. Yes, yesterday finished off his third month of employment- which means, he's finally eligible for commendations. She'll have to see about descending to the surface tomorrow- the pain throughout her entire body has been fading a little at the end of her journey- to deliver his commendation in person.

She then sighs to herself. She really hopes it doesn't go to his head, and that he keeps it up. Then, at six months, she'll be able to promote him- and start working more directly with him, find out if she can trust him with something a little more… She pulls up the complete Distortion Drive blueprint on her database display again. Maybe, in a year, she might be able to build the thing. And then give him credit for the discovery, because she'd get the stagefright something fierce. It's bad enough she's a princess that's been known around a few small circles to help move cargo between ships; she doesn't think she could handle going down in history as the one to have worked out the Distortion Drive.

She glances down the staff list again… Looks like one of her dayshift engineers quit while she was out. Again. Said on his exit interview that he studied to design and build, not to talk to spacers.

She lets out a deep sigh, and punches the shortcut to update the job posting. Once upon a time, she'd tried hiring the average pony and teaching them about the job, as they do on Earth- but she doesn't have the programs they have, so that had exploded in her face. Almost quite literally- she'd had to fire one mare because she'd gotten it into her head that any heat was bad, even living temperatures! A few spacers had been subject to minor cases of frostbite, but she'd caught it before it became irreparable.

For that reason, while one of her Emergency Engineers- the one that's been around the longest, but isn't all that great at showing up on time- used to be an Emergency Engineer at Earth, all the rest have engineering degrees.

Employee retention has suffered for it, though. Thanks to Orbital Control being on her parents' finances (and their being happy with how she's created the safest place in space), she pays them as well as any other engineering outfit might pay them- but they last, on average, about two months… and always complain that they didn't get to turn wrenches. Which was in the job description, so they shouldn't have been surprised.

She tilts her head at the computer screen. Yes, Star is probably going to last a lot longer; after all, through his first month- and probationary period- working for her, he'd studied up on the controller's jobs while he waited for either his panel or a controller to indicate something for him to do. Which certainly suggests he plans on keeping the job for the long run.

She then spends about twenty minutes sorting through all her email, before switching over to check what applications she's received since she left.

Almost immediately, she lets out a derisive snort. She's had two applications for the overnight controller job- and one of them, Broken Orbit, was fired from the same not two weeks ago, for failing to show up for his scheduled shifts. She declines that application out of hoof, before looking at the other.

If she's sure of one thing about Night Skies, it's that the filly made extensive use of various career services available at the Pony State University, where she double-majored in Engineering and Law. She raises an unsurprised eyebrow, idly wondering what the filly thought was going to happen and how it differed from what had happened, and scans down the rest. No work history; this must be her first job. However, she was quite active at college; she was apparently part of no less than six clubs, and even president of one of them, despite never graduating.

She shrugs. Why not? Night shift has been chronically understaffed, and even then only by ponies that can't be bothered to show up at all, let alone on time. Besides, with a name like Night Skies, the evidently ambitious filly very well could be partially nocturnal already.

She's about to flag it for more attention tomorrow- it's right about midnight, local time- when she notices the note that Night Skies put in the 'additional info' box. Apparently, the best time to contact the girl is at night.

She shrugs, glances at the phone number, and turns to tap it into her communications panel.

It rings three times before somepony answers.

"What?" She sounds depressed.

She flinches. Hopefully, it's just a passing hardship that has her in a temporary bad mood; she'd hate to have to interview somepony who'd given up on life and was only applying because she was supposed to. She's done that before. She takes a deep breath, before launching into her standard spiel for first contact with new applicants. "Hello, this is Princess Short Flight. May I speak to Night Skies?"

The gasp is- as always- audible. Most ponies assume she has a hiring manager to do it for her- but when she'd tried that, the understaffing problems had been even worse. So everypony is surprised when she calls them herself. "Um- Yes Princess, that'd be me?" There's also an edge of worry in her voice. She is, after all, the Princess.

Good thing she knows how to defuse that pretty quickly. "Hi, I was calling in reference to your application to Orbital Control?" The sigh of relief is usually audible, but not this time. "Specifically, I wanted to see about scheduling an interview for the position of Overnight Controller, if you're interested."

"Y-Yes, I'm interested." She raises her eyebrow again; it sounds formulaic, practiced. The filly has definitely made extensive use of Pony State's career services. Has she been job-hunting unsuccessfully for a long duration, or otherwise expects difficulty in landing a job? "I will be available to interview at your earliest convenience."

The first and the last parts of the filly's statement- 'yes' and 'your earliest convenience'- are the only really important parts to her, and she grins at the panel. Time to find out how literal that 'earliest convenience' is.

"How's… Tomorrow, two PM, at the control tower?" That'll give her plenty of time to mete out the coachings due two of the dayshift controllers before the interview; she's pretty sure they're stallion and wife, and they're both regularly late. She'll give Shooting Star his commendation after the interview; that'll be a good note to end her day on- and Star's, for that matter.

"Ah… Yep, that works for me. Tomorrow, two PM, at the control tower."

She smiles. "Readback is correct, I'll see you then."

"R-Roger."

She hangs up, and lets out a breath. The coming interview could easily go either way- the filly sounded depressed, but there had been a noticeable difference from the moment she'd mentioned why she was calling. It could well be clinical depression… or it could also be brought about by difficulties finding a job. Most ponies don't hire for the middle of the night- and those that do, are usually in the space industry… which is very hard to get into without a college degree or two. With only one exception: Night shift at Orbital Control.

No new applications came in for her standing Emergency Engineer openings, though, so she finally logs off, climbs out of her seat, and walks back to her kitchen. She still has no clue how she's doing that in zero gravity.


End file.
